It’s been a while since I’ve done an update about recent NetWorker releases, and it’s high time I correct that. In this post, I want to cover off new features and updates included in both NetWorker 19.10 and 19.11. Since I’m covering two releases, I’ll break the updates up into regular topics but note which release it came in.
Security
- [19.10] You can use restricted data zones with vCenters and vProxies.
- [19.10] For newer PowerProtect Data Domain installs, the NetWorker server uses DDBoost 7.12 or higher with a default encryption strength of medium.
- [19.10] NetWorker Virtual Edition now has its ssh rootid password protected.
- [19.10] The OpenSSL library has been updated to 1.1.1n.
NetWorker Web UI
- [19.10] You can now perform backup and recovery of the WebUI database.
- [19.10] Tape libraries can now be managed with the WebUI.
- [19.11] Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) can now be enabled for local users of the UI.
- [19.11] Create and manage NDMP clients within the WebUI.
NDMP
- [19.10] NDMP indexing has been increased; you can now index files/folders in NDMP backups that exceed 250,000,000 files.
- [19.10] You can now use the REST API to query NDMP client details.
vCenter and VMware
- [19.10] New option introduced allowing you to set an environment variable (NSRVIM_TIME_INTERVAL) which controls how often NetWorker queries the vCenter server for configuration changes.
- [19.10] Proxy datastore configuration now supports wildcards.
- [19.10] Transport modes can be specified for VMware backups when performing the backup.
- [19.11] vProxy adds support for SLES 15 SP4.
NetWorker Server
- [19.10] You can install NetWorker now on an NFS share presented from PowerProtect DD, Isilon, and Linux NFS servers.
- [19.11] You can now enable a disaster recovery state for the NetWorker server; while this mode is enabled, non-DR workflows (e.g., backup, clone, etc.) are disabled.
- [19.11] Japanese language support for REST API messages from the NetWorker server.
- [19.11] New options to control the level to which reverse DNS calls are performed within NetWorker.
- [19.11] REST API has been enhanced to allow you to configure tape drives and tape libraries on the system.
Storage Node Support
- [19.11] Storage nodes are no longer supported for HP-UX, AIX or Solaris. Please transition these to Windows or Linux.
[19.11] Azure Backup
Using NetWorker 19.11, you can now perform backup and recovery of Azure virtual machines. You can:
- Create snapshots and write them to Data Domain systems.
- Schedule the backups with appropriate retention, clone the backups, etc.
This lets you extend your NetWorker data protection functionality to cover Azure VMs as well as the normal plethora of on-premises and other workloads, a huge win for NetWorker customers stretching into the public cloud.
[19.11] Dynamic Filesystem Backup
Filesystems just keep growing and growing, and the chances of a business running one or more large-scale distributed filesystems just keeps on increasing, too.
With 19.11, NetWorker introduces the notion of dynamic fileystem backup (this can’t be used for Azure Filesystem); with dynamic filesystem backup, you designate primary clients and fill-in clients. At the start of the backup process, NetWorker does some analysis to work out how many helper nodes it’ll need. Each node gets automatically assigned to a particular segment of the filesystem, but all index details are consolidated under a single, globally accessible index, making the finding and recovery of individual files even across large distributed filesystems a breeze.
Where to go from here
NetWorker 19.10 and 19.11 – amongst other versions of course – are all accessible from the NetWorker support landing page at Dell, here.